How funding cuts affected TB services around the world

MANILA - From staffing to screening and treatment, the sharp decline in donor funding marked by the swift dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) this year has led to severe disruptions in tuberculosis services in high-burden countries, a new report shows.

According to the Global Tuberculosis Report 2025 published this month by the World Health Organization, the funding cuts affected many national TB programmes in low- and middle-income countries that were dependent upon both USAID bilateral support and grants from the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The report is based primarily on annual data gathered by the WHO from national ministries of health in more than 184 countries and territories.

From 2015 to 2024, the U.S. government provided about half of all international donor funding for tuberculosis, including about a third of total contributions to the Global Fund financing partnership, the report said.

In 2024, USAID funds made up 20% or more of reported TB funding in 13 of the 21 USAID priority countries for TB.

Four of these countries were among the top 10 high-burden countries for tuberculosis last year.

In 17 affected countries surveyed by the WHO, among the most frequently reported disruptions in TB services were screening and community engagement, diagnosis, sample transport and supply-chain management.

Treatment for TB was the least affected so far, with only three countries reporting moderate impact, according to the WHO report.

But management and support staff for national TB programmes were highly impacted in most of these countries.

In the Philippines, the country with the third highest TB incidence worldwide, loss of USAID funding has reduced community outreach, contact investigations and diagnostic operations of partner organisations.

The national government has mitigated the effects of the donor funding cuts by increasing the health budget for its TB programme and pushing local government units to allocate funds for TB services.

In South Africa, donor funding cuts affected TB research, but the country also boosted its domestic funding to fill the gap.

A new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Boston University School of Public Health estimated an additional 2.5 million paediatric TB cases and 340,000 paediatric TB deaths occurring in the next decade in low- and middle-income countries if the U.S. continues to slash its bilateral health aid.

Earlier this year, the WHO called for an “urgent investment” in TB care and support services worldwide, with tuberculosis considered one of the world’s deadliest infectious disease, responsible for more than one million deaths annually.

(Reporting by Mariejo Ramos. Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst.)